Bleckley County girls on surprise run to semifinals

Identity has been slow in coming for this Bleckley County girls team, and nobody knows that better than head coach Jenny Manning.

In October, she didn’t foresee a GHSA Class 2A semifinal team as she worked with a fairly young roster.

In early February, she didn’t foresee a Class 2A semifinal team as she had no idea what the Royals would do on a nightly basis.

After all, there was a 15-point loss to rebuilding West Laurens (Class 4A), a 20-point home loss to Dodge County followed by a nine-point loss at Class 1A FPD, which was followed by six wins in the next seven games. Then Dodge County put a 69-43 beating on Bleckley County, which then won five straight.

“Throughout the season, we were very inconsistent,” Manning said. “I thought we played teams we should’ve beat we didn’t beat. Me and my assistant coach (boys head coach John Stanley) were scratching our head, trying to think what was going on. We weren’t winning games we thought we should have won.”

Senior Fellesia Young didn’t see a Final Four team back in October or January.

“No way,” she said.

The same goes for junior forward Jahnaria Brown.

“Maybe go to the Sweet 16,” she said. “Like we have since my freshman year.”

Yet here they are, set to play Rabun County at 6 p.m. on Saturday in a Class 2A semifinal at Georgia College.

Apparently, the Region 3-2A tournament at Dublin was the light switch.

“When we played the first game of the region tournament, it was like the light bulb went on,” Manning said. “They have really stepped up their game big time since then.”

The Royals beat Northeast by 15, topped Washington County — which beat the Royals by four a week earlier — by 11 and then led most of the game in knocking off Dodge County 61-54 for the region title and a No. 1 seed in the state tournament.

“Dodge blew us out twice,” Manning said. “Me and my assistant coach, we felt all along we could play with Dodge, and we didn’t.”

Until it mattered the most.

“(Stanley) told us if we got a third chance at them, they wouldn’t beat us three times,” Young said. “That made it that much more special when we did beat them.”

And to the admitted surprise of their head coach, the Royals are improbably in their first state semifinal since the school changed from Cochran to Bleckley County in the mid-1970s, with an alumna — Class of 1987 — in charge.

“I thought we could make it to state,” Manning said. “I just didn’t know how deep.”

Cochran was a fairly regular visitor to the semifinals back in the 1960s and 1970s, last making it in 1974 under head coach Ben Dykes.

Manning graduated from Bleckley County, attended ABAC and graduated from Georgia College as a scholarship softball player. She coached a few years at Westfield and then Dodge County and was an assistant at Bleckley County under Benjy Rogers and Anthony Jenkins.

Severals players have picked things up or improved, like senior Faith Harris, who didn’t play last year, and freshmen Jayla Willis and Kiziya Elvine.

“Fellesia Young, now, that kid, she does things for our team that stats don’t show,” Manning said. “She’s calmed down a little bit. Well, she’s calmed down a lot. She’s making better decisions, she handles the basketball when we need her to. She boxes out for you.

“She doesn’t really freak out anymore. She’s got that calm head right now.”

Brown was the region player of the year, and Aliyah Whitehead made the second team. The Royals have a balanced team that is on a good run of sharing the ball and displaying balance. But there is an area that has really picked up.

“Defense,” Manning said. “We really turned it on since the (region) tournament. We kinda stopped Dodge, we stopped Dade, and the other night, we stopped Hapeville. We’ve played some pretty good teams.”

The Royals have given up 50 or more points only 10 times and 60 or more only twice — the Dodge County losses.

Manning has no idea how her team will react to the semifinal stage, except in one area.

“They don’t seem like they get overly excited about anything, to be honest with you,” she said. “If you see them walk into the gym, they’re just nonchalant. But I’ve said this about some of my other teams, too. When the ball goes up, they’re ready.”

This story was originally published March 3, 2017 at 5:23 PM with the headline "Bleckley County girls on surprise run to semifinals."